“Every time my friends talked about their father, I thought that they were making stuff up. I had lost him at a very small age. It was my mother who raised me and my sister. When she died, I felt lost but I took on her responsibility to look after my sister. I also carried in me the dream to scale Mt. Everest. At one of these meeting with the climbers, I was told, “You can come along, but you’ll have to cook”. I told them I wanted to climb Everest as a guide and not as a cook. I could then see the challenges for a girl to become a mountaineer in a male dominated arena. But I carried the will with me and I got to climb Mt. Everest not very long after that. When I was climbing the everest, I remember thinking, “What if I die here, who will take my body back home? Who will look after my sister? I had fears but as I trudged ahead, I could also see my dreams come true.” (2/2) (Pasang Lhamu Sherpa, Lukla)